Lilac Girls

  As the doctor continued, Kasia kept her chin high, but her mouth softened. Her eyes grew glassy.

  “Ground silica and wood fragments were introduced, and the wound was stitched up and given plaster dressing,” said the doctor.

  Could the doctor not see she was distressed? I stood and walked toward the stage.

  “This cast remained in place long enough for gas gangrene and other conditions to develop,” the doctor continued. “Then sulfonamides were introduced.”

  The doctors scribbled down notes.

  “In addition to severe deformity, which affects the entire skeletal system, patient suffers posttraumatic reactions of the brain, depression—”

  “I am sorry, but…” Kasia said. She stood, one hand over her eyes, the other holding the sheet to her chest.

  I stepped up onto the stage. “This cannot continue, Doctor.”

  “But these women have agreed to this,” Dr. Gruca said. “The doctors have disrupted busy schedules to be here.”

  “So have the Rabbits, Doctor. You may continue the examinations in private. You, Dr. Hitzig, and I will be present.”

  “This is highly—”

  I took Kasia by the hand. “These women were victims once but will not be abused again if I’m here.”

  “Let us continue in the smaller examination room,” Dr. Hitzig said.

  I helped Kasia off the stage and to the dressing area and did my best to help her dress.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your help.”

  “You speak English so well, dear.”

  “Not so much.”

  “Certainly better than my Polish.”

  “My sister Zuzanna isn’t here yet, but she is on the list. She’s a doctor. And has beautiful English.”

  “I will look for her,” I said.

  The exams progressed nicely once they moved to the smaller room, attended only by Dr. Hitzig, Dr. Gruca, and myself. Kasia’s sister Zuzanna was the last patient examined. She asked that Kasia be allowed to sit in, and the doctors agreed.

  “Zuzanna Kuzmerick,” Dr. Hitzig read. “Forty-three years old. A member of the control group of sulfonamide operations. Injected with staphylococcus and tetanus bacteria. One of the few controls who, given no antibiotics, spontaneously recovered. Currently experiences cross-lateral headaches, occasional dizziness, and gastric upset. Possible gastric ulcer, treated with antacids.” Dr. Hitzig stopped reading.

  “Go on, Doctor,” said Zuzanna. “It’s fine.”

  Dr. Hitzig removed his glasses.

  “I don’t think it’s—”

  “I’ve seen it,” said Zuzanna. “I wrote it, actually. It says I was sterilized at the camp, doesn’t it?”

  Kasia stood. “Oh no, Zuzanna.”

  “It’s fine. I wrote the report. Please, Doctor…continue.”

  Dr. Hitzig slid his glasses back on. Zuzanna sat straight in her chair as Dr. Hitzig began his examination, feeling the glands on both sides of her neck.

  “Is it hard for you as a doctor to suddenly become a patient?” I asked.

  “No,” Zuzanna said. “It’s important to see both sides. Makes me a better doctor. That is one of the reasons I’d like to come to America. And to take more advanced medical classes and learn as much as I can.”

  Zuzanna spoke such good English, with her lovely, lilting Polish accent, it was a pleasure listening to her.

  Dr. Hitzig rubbed two fingers on the left side of her neck.

  “What is it, Doctor?” Zuzanna asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Dr. Hitzig said. “I think we are done here for now.”

  As we cleaned up and the Polish women prepared for the trip home, Dr. Hitzig conferred with his fellow doctors, and I shared the gifts I’d brought from the States.

  “Gather round, girls,” I said. I held out one of the lovely handbags I’d brought, this one of navy-blue leather. The golden clasp caught the light. “These have been donated by a wonderful American shop called Lane Bryant.”

  The Rabbits stood still as if rooted in place. Such a serious group.

  “Girls, please don’t be shy,” I said, holding the bag out farther still. “They are free. They have been donated. Blue is the big color this year.”

  Still not a move. I picked up a Whitman’s Sampler box, the name on the package painted in cross-stitch.

  “Anyone for chocolates?” Not one moved toward me. “Fig Newtons? They’re cookies.”

  “Maybe we should take a photograph?” Kasia said, motioning toward my Leica. They gathered for the camera, and the photograph arranged itself, like a bouquet of flowers in a vase.

  “What will this trip be like?” asked Kasia.

  “So far, the plan is the Rabbits will start in New York City and then fan out to stay in private homes across the country. Then the group will meet up in San Francisco and travel to Los Angeles and then return across the country by bus, visiting Las Vegas, Texas, and ending in Washington, D.C.”

  Kasia translated to the others, who gathered close to hear. I expected at least smiles, but the women remained solemn.

  “They would like to know where the ship leaves from,” said Kasia.

  “Oh, no ship,” I said. “Pan American Airways has donated the airfare.”

  There was much excited discussion in Polish and plenty of smiles after that.

  “Most of us have never been on a plane before,” Kasia said.

  Dr. Hitzig stuck his head in the door, and all eyes turned to him.

  “We have our final list,” he said. “May I speak to you privately, Miss Ferriday?”

  I rushed to join the doctor back in our exam room.

  “They are all cleared to go on the trip,” Dr. Hitzig said.

  “How wonderful.” I breathed a tremendous sigh.

  “Except one. The doctor.”

  “Zuzanna? Why, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Sorry to say, I found a hardened Virchow’s node,” he said.

  “What?”

  “It indicates a cancerous tumor.”

  “Can it be treated?”

  “Probably not. It is a strong indication of stomach cancer. Her days are numbered, I’m afraid.”

  I hurried to the women waiting at the door with their coats on, ready to head home. I asked Zuzanna and her sister, Kasia, to meet with Dr. Hitzig and me privately and ushered them to the exam room. They sat on folding chairs.

  “Zuzanna, I’m afraid, well…” Dr. Hitzig said. “The lump I found in your neck is a hardened Virchow’s node.”

  “The seat of the devil?” said Zuzanna.

  “I prefer the name ‘signal node,’ ” Dr. Hitzig said.

  “It is a symptom of gastric cancer, isn’t it?” Zuzanna said.

  “I am afraid so, yes.”

  “Too bad to have one named after a German doctor,” said Zuzanna with a wan smile, eyes bright.

  “How can you be sure?” Kasia asked.

  “We should do more tests,” Dr. Hitzig said. “But it is the conclusion of the medical group that you are not a candidate for travel to the United States.”

  Kasia stood. “What? The whole reason for the trip is to get medical attention not available here. How can you bring us all this way and refuse the person who needs you most? She can have my place.”

  “It is not a matter of space, Kasia,” I said.

  “You talk about helping us, Miss Ferriday, but you don’t really care. You bring us fancy handbags and expect us to snatch them up.”

  “I thought you would like—”

  “We are ladies, Miss Ferriday. Ladies who don’t all like being called Rabbits—easily frightened, caged animals. Ladies who live in a country where we cannot accept gifts. Is this not obvious to you? A new handbag from an American? People disappear for a lot less. A Polish journalist accepted chocolates from an American, and no one has heard from her since.”

  I felt my cheek grow hot. How could I have been so cavalier?

  “Kasia, please,” Zuzanna said.

/>   “You really want to help, Miss Ferriday? Help my sister.”

  Kasia walked to Dr. Hitzig. “I will pay you anything to put her on that list.”

  “We will know more after the test—” Dr. Hitzig began.

  “My sister is a woman who can save lives. She has done nothing but help others. You treat her, and you treat thousands.”

  “I wish it were otherwise, but the doctors here agree,” Dr. Hitzig said.

  “We cannot overrule the ZBoWiD,” I said.

  “I’m leaving,” Kasia said. “This is ridiculous.”

  She rushed out.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said to Zuzanna.

  Zuzanna laid one hand on my sleeve. “I understand, Miss Ferriday—”

  “Caroline, dear.”

  “The important thing is the rest of the girls get to America.”

  I gathered Zuzanna in my arms and held her close. Such a lovely woman. But so thin. How tragic she was so ill. If only we could get some of the Woolsey remedies into her.

  When we finally separated, Zuzanna took my hand.

  “Don’t mind my sister, Caroline. Kasia is just a little tense sometimes. We’ve been through a lot together. But your gifts are very much appreciated.”

  She smiled.

  “And if you want to leave your gifts at the hat check, I’ll make sure the girls get them once no one is looking.”

  1958

  The day before I was scheduled to leave for America, our tiny bedroom was scattered with clothes, some mine, most borrowed. Pietrik rubbed his back, sore from taking my suitcase down from the closet shelf and putting it back up, since I’d packed and unpacked six times. Pietrik had won a radio at the factory, a prize for the most productive worker, and we’d turned it up, for good-looking Eddie Fisher, my favorite singer, was on.

  Dungaree doll, dungaree doll,

  Paint your initials on my jeans…

  Pietrik held me, and we swayed to the music. It would be nice to be able to dance again. But how could I go to America and have the operation without Zuzanna?

  I released Pietrik and continued to unpack.

  “How can you be so foolish?” he said.

  “I’m not going without Zuzanna.”

  Pietrik sat on the bed next to my open suitcase, Matka’s old green one. “Zuzanna told you to go. How can you pass this up?”

  I wanted to get on that plane. More than I’d wanted anything in a long time. I would have the chance to have my leg put back to normal or close to it. Just the idea that I might be relieved of the pain made me giddy. And all the girls were scheduled for dental work. Could the dentists there fix my tooth? It had gotten so bad I hardly smiled. Plus, what would it be like to fly in a jet to New York and see the sights? California too. The Lublin papers had already made us celebrities.

  I pulled my good dress from the suitcase and hung it back in the closet. “How can I leave Zuzanna here?”

  “We’d miss you if you went,” he said. “But think of all you’ll miss out on, Kasia. Zuzanna’s the one who most wants you to go. What about Halina? How does this look, her mother afraid?”

  The thought of flying on a plane for the first time made my stomach hurt—never mind the prospect of having to use my terrible English in America and of another operation.

  “I’d be gone for months. Who’s to say Zuzanna would be alive when I returned?”

  Pietrik took my hand. “We’ll take good care of her.”

  His hand felt good around mine. I pulled away and closed the locks on my empty suitcase.

  “There’s no changing my mind,” I said.

  Pietrik heaved my suitcase up, returning it to the top shelf of the closet. “You have to learn there are some things you can’t change.”

  “So it would be better to leave my sister here to die? I’m not—”

  I turned to see Zuzanna there in our bedroom doorway.

  “Oh, I was—” Had she heard?

  Zuzanna stepped into the room, hands behind her back. “Don’t worry about it, Kasia.”

  I braced myself, arms folded across my chest. “I won’t go without you.”

  “I’m glad,” she said.

  “So you’re not upset with me?”

  She smiled. “Not at all.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and felt her hard ribs through the back of her dress. “Good, because I would never leave you.”

  “Well, that makes me happy,” Zuzanna said. “Because if I’m going to die, I’ll want you near me.” She pulled from her pocket a telegram envelope. “Especially since we’ll be in New York together.”

  She pulled a sheet from the envelope, cleared her throat, and read: “Miss Zuzanna Kuzmerick cleared for travel to U.S. STOP Travel documents to follow STOP Report to Warsaw Airport with New York–bound group STOP Bon Voyage STOP Caroline Ferriday STOP.”

  Pietrik walked to the closet and pulled the suitcase down from the shelf as Zuzanna and I swayed in each other’s arms to Eddie Fisher’s smooth voice.

  Together, together, together.

  DECEMBER 1958

  We landed at Idlewild Airport in New York at 8:30 A.M., thirty-five very excited Polish women. The din of Polish on that plane was so loud, but the other passengers were kind and seemed to enjoy watching it all.

  Caroline met us as we came down the steps from the plane—some of us very slowly—and directed a parade of wheelchairs. The name Caroline means joy, so it’s no wonder we were all so happy to see her. She looked beautiful in a navy suit, French scarf, and a charming little felt hat with a feather on top.

  “Why isn’t she married?” all the Polish ladies asked.

  Tall, slim, and delicately pretty, with the regal bearing of a queen, in Poland Caroline would have had many marriage proposals each day.

  Once we made it through customs, a crush of reporters and Red Cross people and friends of Caroline surrounded us…so many camera bulbs flashing!

  “How do you like it in America so far?” said one reporter, pointing a microphone at my face.

  “If the food on the plane is any sign, it will be a good trip,” I said. They all laughed.

  “Welcome to the Polish ladies,” said Caroline, her arm around Zuzanna’s waist. “An olive branch across the miles.”

  You’ve never in your life seen so many smiling faces in one place.

  That week we all split up and went to different cities. Zuzanna and I stayed in New York with Caroline for treatment at Mount Sinai Hospital. Others went to Boston for reconstructive surgery; to Detroit, Baltimore, and Cleveland for heart operations. Two went to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver for the best tuberculosis treatment in the world, for their lungs were still bad.

  My sister and I were lucky to stay in New York, since there was so much to see. Caroline drove us all over, Zuzanna in the front seat, of course. Caroline couldn’t get enough of Zuzanna, it seemed, as if they were best friends all of a sudden.

  “Here is Central Park, ladies, one of the most beautiful parks in the world.”

  “We have beautiful parks in Poland,” I said.

  She talked about her city as if it were the only one in the world.

  We drove down Fifth Avenue. Hundreds of cars choked the streets, many with only one person inside. Such wastefulness! How was it allowed?

  Our first day at Mount Sinai Hospital was a busy one, packed with blood tests and every other test you can imagine. Mount Sinai was a massive complex ten times the size of any Polish hospital. It took a long time to get anywhere, since the pain in my leg forced me to rest often and since Caroline stopped everyone she saw and introduced us.

  “These ladies are here for medical treatment all the way from Poland,” she would say.

  People were polite but looked at us with pity. It was kind of Caroline to introduce us, but it made it impossible to blend in.

  The glass front doors of the hospital parted as if by magic, and Caroline forged ahead with Zuzanna as we hurried to meet the doctor. Zuzanna looked about her, rema
rking upon every little thing.

  “Can you believe this place? So huge.”

  Caroline turned as she walked. “Six floors. All state of the art.”

  “How do they get to know the patients in such a big place?” I asked.

  Zuzanna dropped back to walk with me. “This is the future of medicine. Can’t wait to see their rehabilitation ward.”

  “We have that at home,” I said.

  “What? A jump rope and two dumbbells? They have a whole hydrotherapy unit here. Some people would be grateful to receive such care.”

  We changed into hospital gowns and the nurse affixed a paper bracelet to my wrist. As we went to be x-rayed, I kept my purse and clothes with me, though a locker was offered.

  “Can you believe this equipment?” Zuzanna asked.

  I slipped a soft robe over my gown. “Ours does the same thing. Just not as new.”

  We walked to the doctor’s office in slippers we were allowed to keep.

  “Please, let me take your things,” said the doctor’s nurse, a tall woman wearing a ruffled nurse’s cap.

  She tried to take my clothes and purse from my arms, but I held on tight. “I’ll keep them, thank you.”

  The nurse helped me up a little step stool to sit on the examining table. The paper crinkled under me as I sat. Dr. Howard Rusk was a good-looking man with a shock of white hair and a kind face. He held up a small metal box that fit in his palm.

  “Do I have your permission to record my notes with this device? It saves me time.”

  A doctor asking a patient for permission? That was different.

  I nodded, and Dr. Rusk spoke into the box.

  “The operations at Ravensbrück concentration camp in Fürstenberg, Germany, throughout 1942 left Mrs. Bakoski, a thirty-five-year-old Caucasian woman of Polish-German descent, with reduced muscle function in her left calf, complicated by the introduction of foreign elements.”

  He slid my x-ray under the metal rim of the light box and flicked on the light.

  Zuzanna turned to me, her mouth open. There was a light box in every exam room. We had only one at the hospital back home.

  My x-ray showed a scattering of objects in my calf. How strange to see it in such detail! I’d had plenty of x-rays but had never seen such clarity. It brought the operating room at Ravensbrück back in full color. Dr. Gebhardt. Dr. Oberheuser. I started to sweat as the doctor slid another x-ray onto the light box.